Kota Ezawa S the Burghers of Calais: Re-Creating Rodin S Famous Sculpture

Kota Ezawa’s The Burghers of Calais:
Re-creating Rodin’s famous sculpture

In this project students re-create the well-known 1889 sculpture by Auguste Rodin as a performance and video sculpture.

Assignment

Preparation

Your class will divide into groups of 8–10 students. Within each group, 6 of the students will be performers and the rest will be cameramen/women or directors.

-  With your group, study photos of Auguste Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais. These photos can easily be found on the Internet or in books about Rodin’s work.

-  Next, select a site for your group’s version of the Rodin sculpture, such as the courtyard of your school or another place suitable for public art.

-  With guidance from the directors, the six performers will reenact the poses of the figures in Rodin’s sculpture, while the camera operators situate the camera in a way that captures the scene created by the actors.

(Costumes are not necessary.)

Recording

-  Recording begins once the performers and camera are in place, and continues for 5 minutes. The performers hold their pose for an additional 5 seconds after the director gives a signal to stop recording, and then conclude their performance.

-  Try transferring the recording to a looping DVD. This can be accomplished with DVD Studio Pro.

Exhibition

-  The DVD or videotape is played back on a TV or video monitor.

-  Depending on the number of groups in the class, 2 to 3 Rodin video sculptures are shown simultaneously on 2 to 3 monitors/TVs.

-  The TVs and monitors should be set up in the school courtyard if weather permits, or moved to another public area of the school.

Artist Biography:
Kota Ezawa

Born in 1969 in Cologne, Germany
Currently lives in San Francisco, California and Berlin

As a high school student Ezawa was the singer of a punk band named “The Plot.” In those years he also began making large-scale action paintings inspired by Jackson Pollock. Ezawa went on to study art in Düsseldorf, Germany, and at the San Francisco Art Institute and Stanford University. He is now a film professor at the California College of the Arts and his work has been exhibited in many parts of the world.